UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
The supernatural? Then let us name it the natural- 
supernatural, as Carlyle did? Let us annex all the 
territory that adjoins us; let us put a circle around 
every reality we can conceive of, and regard the 
universe as one, and not as two or three. Carlyle’s 
idea of the natural-supernatural still permitted him 
to look upon nature as the “Time-vesture of God, 
which reveals him to the wise, and hides him from 
the foolish”; but the notion of vesture or clothes 
suggests an arbitrary and artificial relation which is 
more in consonance with theology than with science 
or with life. Goethe’s expression “the living gar- 
ment of God”’ is less misleading, but Pope’s familiar 
couplet, — 
“All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body Nature is, and God, the soul,” — 
is the least objectionable of all, as this restores the 
vital unity which must exist. 
If Nature be half God and half demon, it is all the 
more easy to believe that man arose out of her, since 
these terms fitly describe him also. We say that 
the fountain cannot rise above its source, but surely 
the source is usually above the fountain, and if we 
choose to conceive of this God-nature as much above 
man, there is still room for a broad ground of rela- 
tionship between them. Nature is cruel and blun- 
dering and irrational, and does not the present world- 
war exhibit man as her legitimate offspring? How 
the gods on Olympus must smile and chuckle and 
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